Democrats say Brett Kavanaugh may have committed perjury by lying about Republican 'spying' in the Senate

President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh may have lied under oath about his involvement in the “memogate” scandal that stained the Republican Party in the early 2000s, Democrats said Thursday.

Facing questions on the matter for a second day in a row, Kavanaugh tripped up a bit as Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) presented newly released emails he exchanged with Manny Miranda, a Republican Judiciary Committee aide who stole and disseminated thousands of confidential documents from the committee’s Democrats between 2001 and 2003.

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In several emails to Kavanaugh, Miranda attached documents he had inappropriately obtained from Democratic servers, some of which were explicitly labeled “not for distribution” and “highly confidential.”

Kavanaugh, who was a White House lawyer working on President George W. Bush’s judicial nominees at the time, at no point questioned how Miranda had obtained those records.

In a string of tweets posted Thursday afternoon, Leahy referenced a particular eight-page memo that Miranda had stolen from his staff and sent over to Kavanaugh on March 18, 2003.

“Kavanaugh was told that I received a sensitive letter ‘in the strictest confidence’ about a controversial nominee,” Leahy tweeted. “He was asked to keep the information confidential and to take no action without further instruction. HE DIDN’T THINK THIS WAS ‘untoward’?”

Another particularly damning email sent to Kavanaugh had the subject line “spying” and referenced a “mole on the left” who was feeding information to the Republicans.

The email chains, which were released amid Democratic outrage over their being kept confidential, directly contradict sworn testimony Kavanaugh gave at his confirmation hearings for federal judgeships in 2004 and 2006, according to Leahy.

“A number of senators, Republicans and Democrats, asked you, and you said you never received any stolen materials,” Leahy said at Thursday’s hearing, recalling questioning about the memogate scandal at the time. “That doesn’t appear to be accurate.”

Kavanaugh contended he had no reason to suspect the records Miranda forwarded to him had been obtained illegally, saying committee Democrats and Republicans frequently exchanged information.

Miranda was pressured to resign in 2004 after details about his hacking activity were exposed. The ex-GOP aide was never prosecuted but Democrats and Republicans agreed his actions amounted to criminal behavior.

While unlikely, the possibility that Kavanaugh may have lied under oath could jeopardize his nomination to the Supreme Court, according to experts.

“It would probably be a difficult task to prove that so-called red flags rendered his testimony perjurious,” Mark Zauderer, a New York appellate lawyer and confirmation process expert, told the Daily News. “Of course, there is always the possibility that some witness will now emerge who will add color and confirmation to the emails.”

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Leahy says the unearthed email exchanges between Kavanaugh and Miranda may just be the tip of the iceberg.